Go Lean Commentary
We have an island in the Caribbean – Montserrat – that is coupled, compared and contrasted with Ireland in fact, fiction and folklore …
Montserrat is nicknamed “The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean” both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of many of its inhabitants.[3][4] – Wikipedia
Maybe the coupling-comparison-contrast with Ireland can also apply to their luck:
Wherever the origin of the phrase ‘Luck of the Irish‘ stems from or what is was originally intended to mean, fact is that the Irish are indeed very fortunate people. They are proud of themselves, their country and culture, hardworking, funny and nowadays loved by nations all over the world. – Tour Ireland Blog Nov 26, 2015
But the reality of Irish Luck is only evident after all the hard-work and heavy-lifting; consider this historicity:
The Irish Luck = Bad Luck? During Ireland’s past, many Irish were forced to emigrate due to the potato famine for instance. Often, abroad, the Irish were treated badly and had to struggle to make a living. Some emigrants didn’t even survive the sea crossing, others grew ill and with no health care, suffered badly. Childhood disease saw many families lose their children, with that their reason for succeeding was not so great and depression followed in many cases by alcohol abuse. Many of the original Irish settlers in the US, the UK and Australia never saw their family again. Indeed on the night before a person emigrated a party was held, a sort of ‘funeral’ wake which is a traditional Irish custom when someone dies. Therefore, some believe that the expression is rather an ironic one, stating that the Irish are not lucky after all.
Montserrat “luck” is also fleeting – “not so lucky”:
On 18 July 1995, the previously dormant Soufrière Hills volcano, in the southern part of the island, became active. Eruptions destroyed Montserrat’s Georgian era capital city of Plymouth. Between 1995 and 2000, two-thirds of the island’s population was forced to flee, primarily to the United Kingdom, leaving fewer than 1,200 people on the island as of 1997 (rising to nearly 5,000 by 2016).[5][6] – Wikipedia
As we approach St. Patrick’s Day 2019, we are reminded how we love Ireland and the Irish …
… we love Montserrat too.
Consider the previous treatments we gave to Ireland and the Irish people in these previous blog-commentaries from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean; see relevant summaries here:
| The ‘Luck of the Irish’ – Past, Present and Future – March 17, 2015
Why do people wear green? It’s a move of solidarity for Irish people and culture. This is a big deal considering the real history. This subject also has relevance for the Caribbean as Saint Patrick’s Day is a public holiday in the British Caribbean Territory of Montserrat, in addition to the Republic of Ireland,[10] Northern Ireland,[11] and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. While not a holiday elsewhere, this day is venerated by the Irish Diaspora around the world, … This subject also provides a case study for the Caribbean, as the Irish Diaspora is one of the most pronounced in the world. This is the model of what we, in the Caribbean, do not want to become. … The Diaspora, broadly interpreted, contains all those known to have Irish ancestors, i.e., over 100 million people, which is more than fifteen times the population of the island of Ireland, which was about 6.4 million in 2011. In July 2014, the Irish Government appointed Jimmy Deenihan as Minister of State for the Diaspora.[3] … Ireland has fared better since those dire days of the potato famine, but still its people, the Diaspora, endured a lot of misery, resistance and discrimination in their foreign homes. … The usual path for new immigrants is one of eventual celebration, but only after a “long train of abuses”: rejection, anger, protest, bargaining, toleration and eventual acceptance. Wearing green today – or any other March 17th’s – is a statement of acceptance and celebration of the Irish; as a proud heritage for what they have endured and accomplished. … |
| Frederick Douglass [Irish Odyssey]: Role Model for Single Cause – Death or Diaspora – March 17, 2016
The Caribbean can learn an important lesson from a 150 year-old Role Model, Frederick Douglass. His is a powerful lesson for the advocacy of Single Cause. … Mr. Douglass remained steadfast and committed to one cause primarily: abolition of slavery and civil rights for African-Americans. … The legacy of Frederick Douglass, is that if an oppressed population didn’t find refuge, the only outcome would be Death or Diaspora. The Diaspora prophecy happened, then in Ireland and today, especially here in the Caribbean! (In [that] previous blog, it was revealed that after 1840, emigration from Ireland became a massive, relentless, and efficiently managed national enterprise. In 1890 40% of Irish-born people were living abroad. By the 21st century, an estimated 80 million people worldwide claimed some Irish descent; which includes more than 36 million Americans who claim Irish as their primary ethnicity). Caribbean citizens are also pruned to emigrate … to foreign shores (North America and Europe) seeking refuge. In a previous blog-commentary it was asserted that the US – the homeland for Frederick Douglass – has experienced accelerated immigration in recent years. Published rates of societal abandonment among the college educated classes have reported an average of 70 percent in most member-states …. For this reason, there is solidarity for the Diaspora of Ireland and the Diaspora of the Caribbean. |
| Caribbean Ghost Towns [- i.e. Plymouth, Montserrat]: It Could Happen…Again – February 11, 2015
The Caribbean is in crisis today; but even more so, if left unchecked, the crisis gets worst tomorrow …. There is no guarantee of our survival. Communities and societies do fail; success is not assured; the work must be done, we must “sow if we want to reap”. The reality of ghost towns, in the Caribbean and around the world, is a reminder to failing communities of where the road ends. …
There is a ghost town that is an incumbent de jure capital: Plymouth in the Caribbean island of Montserrat. This city was abandoned in 1997 due to volcanic eruptions and is now part of an Exclusion Zone …. The Go Lean book posits that many Caribbean communities suffer from a mono-industrial complex (Page 3), therefore the risk is high for the same ghost town eventuality like so many other towns have experienced. Yes, ghost towns could happen in the Caribbean … again. |
What is the Way Forward for Montserrat?
That previous Go Lean commentary about “Irish Luck” from March 17, 2015 also related the successful Way Forward pursued by modern day Ireland – we need solidarity with this Irish model:
The Republic of Ireland ranks among the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP per capita.[11] After joining the European Union, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity from 1995 to 2007, during which it became known as the Celtic Tiger. This was halted by an unprecedented financial crisis that began in 2008, in conjunction with the concurrent global economic crash.[12][13]
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See this VIDEO here:VIDEO – Ireland is back in business – https://youtu.be/qg1cwyjDlHY
FRANCE 24 English
Published on Feb 11, 2016 – Ireland’s strong economic recovery will be the main backdrop to the country’s general elections on February 26. After five years in power, Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s conservative government are keen to highlight the fact that when they took the job, Ireland’s economy was close to collapse. Public finances are now back on track, and the brutal seven-year austerity programme and bailout plan are a thing of the past. However, opposition parties argue that many people have been left on the sidelines during these tough times. This report takes a closer look at one of the “ingredients” of Ireland’s economic recovery: an extremely low corporation tax. A programme prepared by Patrick Lovett and Laura Burloux.Subscribe to France 24 now : http://f24.my/youtubeEN
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- Category: News & Politics
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See this additional story – How did IRELAND step out of POVERTY? – in this VIDEO here:
https://youtu.be/sDzSIuW6uiM
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Montserrat now has the model by which to follow: regional integration in a EU-styled Single Market. This model will work for the rest of the Caribbean too. This is the quest of the Go Lean movement, to provide a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The book Go Lean … Caribbean addresses this model and prepares the regional institutions accordingly.
This remediation allows us to better appreciate what the Luck of the Irish really means – the end result of the required hard-work and heavy-lifting – as conveyed in this Classic Irish Blessing:
May you always have…
Walls for the winds
A roof for the rain
Tea beside the fire
Laughter to cheer you
Those you love near you
And all your heart might desire.
All in all, the Luck of the Irish “finally fulfilled” means a better homeland to live, work and play. 🙂
About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.